A Few Changes in the Magazine here are a few present and pending changes we would like to bring to your atten- tion in this first issue of the 27th volume of NACLA Report on the Americas. For one thing, after two years of five-times-a-year publica- tion, we are resuming a bimonthly schedule. Thanks to a recent “out- reach” grant, we have been able to hire a half-time art director who has taken just enough burden off the two editors to make the pro- duction of that sixth issue possible. To cover the cost of producing an extra issue each year, we’ve raised our subscription rates to $27 per year-a modest 10 cent increase in the per-issue price. (See the mast- head for the new institutional, for- eign and multi-year rates.) And to cover the constantly rising costs of publishing, we are raising the price of a single issue to $4.75. The presence of an art director allows us to pay closer-and more professional-attention to ques- tions of layout and design, with an eye to producing a more accessible and attractive magazine.This effort is part of an old NACLA tradition. At least since the mid-1970s, NACLA has attempted to broaden its core community of committed activists and scholars-and to pro- vide information and analysis to a larger group of concerned individ- uals-by making the magazine less intimidating and more readable.
NACLA was founded in November, 1966, in re- sponse to the Johnson Administration’s April 1965 inva- sion of the Dominican Republic. The original Naclistas got together to uncover the logic of that inva- sion, and, more broadly, “to identi- fy and explain those elements and relationships of forces in the Unit- ed States and Latin America which inhibit and frustrate urgently need- ed profound social and economic change.” NACLA was born of the belief that through careful study, the “elements and relationships” of exploitation could be revealed, and once revealed, opposed by an informed public.
Volume I, Number 1 of the NACLA Newsletter, published in the heat of new-left mobilization in February, 1967, consisted of 10 stapled-together mimeographed and photocopied pages. By the sec- ond issue of the newsletter, NACLA staffers were calling for the development of a magazine that “would seek to encourage in- depth research and journalism con- ducive to analysis and action; and to help build and inform a commu- nity of people who wish to learn more about how our lives affect the lives and aspirations of over 200 million Latin Americans.” Such a magazine has been evolv- ing ever since. NACLA remains the kind of project that only makes sense with- in the context of a larger communi- ty of activists and scholars. As we reach out to new readers, our over- riding goal is to continue our 26- year-old tradition of publishing a magazine that is useful-useful to activists, scholars and citizens try- ing to make sense of the world in order to change it. o further that goal, we have a few other changes in mind, all of which require resources we hope to be able to muster over the medium-term future. First, and most immediate, we are establishing a regular work- ing relationship with our com- pafieros at the Latin American Information Agency (ALAI) in Ecuador, and at Cuadernos del Tercer Mundo in Brazil. Beginning next winter, with the help of these organizations and a number of friends writing from several coun- tries in the hemisphere, we will publish a regular section of brief regional news coverage. This will allow us to stay more on top of recent events without sacrificing the analytical focus of our longer articles. It will also enable us to report news that is compiled in the region, thus bypassing the editorial filters of the U.S. press.
A second pending project is the publication of a regular column of critical analysis written by a single prominent writer, or perhaps by several alternating writers from Latin America and/or the Caribbean. Like the news project, this will make our connection with the region more immediate and give us direct access to critical Latin American thinking. We are also exploring the possibility of publishing a Spanish-language edition of the magazine further down the road. This would dra- matically increase the community of activists and scholars who are a part of NACLA, and make the interaction within that community all the more lively, up-to-date and useful. In addition to these substantive format changes, we are still work- ing on other ways to make the magazine more appealing, attrac- tive, and yes, more enjoyable to read-political cartoons, more illustrations, maybe even a NACLA crossword puzzle. Think of these projects as part of our political mission, and let us know what you think.
Read the rest of NACLA’s July/August 1993 issue: “Latin American Women: The Gendering Of Politics And Culture.”
